Mainstreaming the Tribal Areas (ex-FATA) of Pakistan Bordering Afghanistan

Book excerpt: The book addresses why the Pakistani state is facing persistent challenges in extending and consolidating its governance (authority) throughout its territories, especially in the former Federally Administered Tribal Areas (ex-FATA)? Even after the de jure merger, the question still remains valid that how Pakistani state could establish its governance in these tribal areas? Through multi-dimensional approaches and multi-pronged analysis of state-centric (top-down), society-centric (bottom-up) and state-in-society (mixed-horizontal) approaches, the book explains factors and dimensions that pose challenges to Pakistani state governance in ex-FATA. The main hypothesis is that societies, where state governance is absent, turn to informal governance and create informal institutions as a substitute for the weak central state governance thereby challenging the domination and control/authority of the state. The book presents policy recommendations for bringing these tribal areas into the mainstream governance system of Pakistan.